


Slash:An Essay

by peoriapeoria



Category: Fandom - Fandom
Genre: Gen, History, Meta, Slash, Writing, non-fiction, the premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: This is a slightly modified version of meta I wrote earlier, posted here as part of the March Meta Challenge.
Kudos: 3
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge, Non-Fiction Works:The Meta





	Slash:An Essay

I've long considered myself a slasher. This identity didn't change just because I was increasingly writing more ensemble casts, or even in the face of heterosexual pairings, which I've had in my stable for years.

It seems that this construction has little meaning for fen that 'weren't there', unless the meaning is pejorative. And, I can see how that's something that happens. I have to juggle many terms when reading history, as groups are called things and identify themselves in particular ways, these shifting like a turned kaleidoscope.

The question is, if I'm not a slasher, then what am I, other than just a writer? The distinction came up in a time when same-sex pairings weren't mainstream and in fact there were rules that movies and other media couldn't 'for homosexuals' have a happy ending. While it predates me, "The Premise" (that Kirk and Spock could have a relationship configured as other than strong friendship) was an underpinning of slash. In my own experience, this was interpreting close-ups and strong homosocial relationships as romantic and thus sexual.

Now, one can see slash does have a seed there, that romance is tethered to sex, that itself is ripe for critique. At the time, writing romance on a basis of friendship and banishing 'the sexy lamp' was challenge enough. In many ways, I became a slasher because it was easier to write romance between two men than between a man and a woman.

We're at a different place. Actors can contest the term bromance, just as guyliner and manbun can be contested as an unnecessary segregation. There are canon same-sex relationships in media. The very virgule that in the days of K/S gave slash its name now is used for any sexual pairing or more-ing (and the x from het can take over when technology balks at the extended character).

What are the current ways fandom distinguishes fanfic and thus the writers of fanfic? I balk at the notion of 'content creator'; I get that it is hard to talk about makers of fanworks in the aggregate, but I am not a vending machine nor part of a supply chain. I am a fan; I consider that much as I do being a citizen instead of a consumer. I write as an expression of my engagement with the source and as a way of connecting with other fans. Squee and dissent combine and separate like a wave motion-sculpture.


End file.
